March 24, 2113

Wow I didn't mean to end the last one so dramatically. It just got to be too much, having to relive the whole thing again. But after having a depression sleep I have decided that I need to get the rest down. At the very least it'll help me get through it.

My father unharmed and just as I remembered seeing him last. Well perhaps a bit more insane, but you couldn't tell just by looking. Neither one of us spoke for a long while just inspecting the other and waiting for the other to talk. For a moment I had hoped that he wasn't actually my father, just someone else with a bizarre power. Then he spoke.

"Your reabsorption has gotten quite a lot faster, but you're still just mediocre. I suppose that's why you're covering your face, ashamed of yourself aren't you, boy?"

My disbelief was quickly replaced with a quiet and cold rage. A thousand sessions of power training came back in one moment. A thousand different times my father abused, belittled, and tortured me. All in an effort to quote, "reach my fullest potential". A thousand moments I'd rather forget, I know he's sick, but I can't forgive him for those moments. Perhaps it had something to do with the insult as well. My father knew better than anyone else the exact status of my mental age, and yet he chose to belittle me. He knew, he knew exactly who I was and what he was doing. He wanted me to get in close for whatever reason. So I would.

After all, I am very well mannered.

I pushed off the floor with a massive push, I'm sure I broke, strained, and snapped pretty much everything I could below the knees, but I didn't care I needed to inflict pain upon the man I once called father. The surprise on his face fucking priceless. He tried to recover and stick me quickly, but my right fist was already plowing into his stomach. I badly wanted to damage boost, laying my full strength into him, but that would kill him far too quickly. Instead while he was reeling from the gut punch, I swept his legs out from under him. I had my duplicates hold him down while damage boosted and shattered his shin. Well I don't know if shattered it, but I broke quite a lot of my foot when I did it so probably shattered.

He screamed his head off, and dropped the syringe which I promptly picked up. You know I thought it would bring me some sort pleasure, or some sense of revenge, when I saw him in such pain. Instead I just felt hollow. I always imagined it would be deeply satisfactory. It just made me more furious. He put me through hell and I couldn't even enjoy it when I returned the favor. After letting him scream for a bit I split once more instructing my duplicates to hold him as still as possible. I then proceeded to put the syringe right up against his neck slowly so he could see it coming, but couldn't stop it.

Just before I touched his skin I said, "Now you're going to answer a few questions or I'm going to inject you with every last drop."

My father started laughing, small at first and uncontrollable. The same laugh I used to find so endearing was now sickening. At once all of the duplicates tightened their grips and began to push down harder wanting to inflict pain, to stop his laughter. His laughter died and I began to ask him questions. Firstly I had to know if he truly was my father, and if so how he survived.

"I was a bad father, I know I killed you again and again and again. Such hope I had it blinded me. I was. I am. I am unfit, unwell, unsure. Your... Well she's gone and I just want to be with her. I wanted to be gone too. I almost was. I thought I was. Thought I saw her. But no no no. They didn't like it. Didn't want me dead. Wanted me for something else. They said I could work. That I could toil as long as I caused no trouble. They said I could research whatever I like. But the government always lies. I toil only for what they want. Not truly free. Not yet, not before either. I never knew. On the edge I was living thinking myself free, but I know. I've seen it. The darkness. The abyss. True freedom lies in that. True horror. I understand that now. It's why I agreed to the project."

There was more, but it devolved into mumbling. He could always go on and on, but not like this. Disjointed and broken, well remember when I said he was a bit crazier? I under sold it.

Well it turns out that the answer to the first question answered a lot of my others. My father did try to kill himself but unfortunately the city wanted his help on a project, and brought him back to life. Or at least prevented him from dying, not too sure about that. But since the city saved him it was likely that he was currently working on that project for them. Which meant I had to flee and flee quickly, after I got answers to my other questions.

"What is the project the city wanted you to work on? And what's in this syringe?"

"The city offered my life and the freedom to conduct research as long as I could strengthen the city's defenses. I've been down here alone stuck in a prison with no exit, and no guards. Free in no sense of the word. Stuck and trapped and wrapped in a cage. All alone with no one, to play, to influence, to grow. The best way to strengthen is to strengthen everyone. So that's what I tried to do, but with monsters and degenerates. I tried and tried and tried. I worked hard, but they say too much of it was failure. And finally someone survived the treatment, but broken and distorted they became. So I analyzed and corrected and tried some more, but too much variation. So I develop something new. A way for success with my only success. To breed and spread and defend a few. They praised me then even if a few escaped they are still happy with me. And-"

He went on and on, saying the same stuff in different ways. Basically he was trying to improve everyone and ended up with these sludge things. And by improve I bet he meant chemical enhanced super powers, and not just temporarily.

"So the stuff in this syringe?" Already fearing the answer.

"It will improve you my son. Either by enhancing your power, or well, it will remove you from caring what happened. Worry not though, most die as soon as they are injected. Lucky, lucky. Perhaps you have become less mediocre."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

And then he started laughing again so I smashed his head into the wall repeatedly. I could still feel the burning in my back as I made his face pretty. The filter aspect of the power would probably protect me. Well if I was... Lucky. It might just be too much damage for me to fix. So worst case scenario I become a mindless sludge slave. Maybe I think that is what he was implying. Whatever. I don't even know what the best case would be, but there was no way to save anyone anymore.

Then a thought occurred to me, the best case scenario. My power would be strengthened and I would survive. If I escaped, and I escaped then I could come back. However I'd have to be much stronger if I wanted to go against the city. If the serum worked on me once then why shouldn't it work again? Rash maybe, but I couldn't let those people suffer.

That would mean that I needed more of it. My father said he was alone down here with only his minion. So I had a duplicate carry him, since the face smashing had knocked him out and made our way further into the facility.

I was pretty proud of myself right up until I ran into a group of people that seemed to be on a guided tour. There seemed to be about twelve people in total, not the worst odds. However it was then that I noticed someone else. Someone smaller than me, and I recognized her. A year younger than me in her prodigious glory stood Lilly. As soon as I saw her I knew I was fucked. Not because she would recognize me, wearing a mask after all. No, I was worried about her parents.

I was going at about a half jog before running into them and stopping, and it took mere seconds for me to be sprinting off passed them down the hall, faster than I ever had. Yet I still worried I wouldn't be fast enough. Lilly's father could summon a suit of magical armor that made stronger, faster, and nigh impervious to damage, her mother could telepathically control any bladed object nearby. Either one could kill me in seconds if they wanted. My father woke up as I was running and started to give my duplicant directions. Throwing my suspicious nature to the wind I listened terrified of getting my ass pounded in.

That's why both me and my duplicate damage boosted down the hall as fast as we could. We burst through a set of double doors, and entered a central hub area. I could hear the group continue to chase after me. From their point of view I wonder how villainous I appeared. It probably didn't look great. In a panic I thought about blocking the door, but if Lily's father was with her then there was no slowing him down so I had to escape as quickly as possible.

"Big red button... On the console... The code is 2866. It'll lock the doors."

His voice was weak, but markedly more steady. I pressed the button and entered the code. The half the lights flickered off and a calm voice blared on the intercom containment breach drill, please stay where you are as the facility enters lockdown for 5 minutes. Armor plating slammed down from above the doors to block them. After all the blaring stopped, my father spoke up again.

"I'm sorry it doesn't give us more time, but you need to escape."

He got off my back, riffled through a draw and pulled out a map. He outlined an escape route with his finger. I scanned the map as he pointed to the exit... The route he outlined just so happened to pass by a storage room. There were so many things that I wanted an answer to or an apology for, but in that moment I could only ask why.

"I will never be a good dad. I've always known that. My actions may not have shown it, but I've only ever wanted you to be the best you can... Besides if you didn't want more of the serum you would have just left." There was a quiet moment where I didn't know what to do or say, before my father continued. "The serum needs to work itself out of your system before you can take more. It takes about a month for the burning to stop. That when you know you can take more. We cannot leave the bounds of this place, but come back if you need us."

Then a terrible realization hit me. He laughed earlier because he had already used the damn stuff on himself. "Father, what did the serum do to you."

"It opened me. Split me up. Scrambled me up. Made me many. Made us broke. We are failures. It didn't work like it should. Made us less. Almost worse than you. We have dozens trapped in one."

For that I knocked him out again. So that's why he is so distorted. There are many different hims talking at once. Slipping their own thoughts into the conversation.

Dropping my father in the hub room, felt nice. Looking back it feels like I shouldn't have just left him there, but what else could I have done? I couldn't take him hostage and there was no way I could kill him. It probably wouldn't have stopped the experiments. I just knew that if I made it out of here alive I would be back. I would destroy this place.

When the door opened me and my duplicate took off sprinting again as fast as we could. Unfortunately somebody was immediately on us.

I could feel the tendons and muscles strain, rip and snap as I damage boosted down the hall. I could hear them gaining on me as I ran. I darted into the storage room and hid. It didn't take long for the pursuer to enter and find me. I was promptly taken to the surface when I was beaten and interrogated with my duplicant. However, the third duplicant that I created after entering was safe and sound. I was able to steal a whole case of vials and leave after two hours. The two of me that got captured were forced to recombine to prove that it wasn't me and my twin, but just my twin. Thankfully it took them a while to figure out who I was and it was enough time to make it unnoticed out of the complex back to school. They kept a close watch on me. I could feel their eyes on me constantly. Not fully convinced that I wasn't of my innocence. Strangely they didn't interrogate me at school.

I don't think they wanted me to know that they had my brother. Judging from their questions they seemed to expect some big bad to come after me. They were using me as bait for my "brother". Fortunately for me nobody can get their hands on my journal entries now. I've been writing this on an old junk phone that I only use for writing. I have a new password protecting my phone, and I encrypted the files. It sounds a lot more impressive than it is. I just put in a password to open the phone then a password to open each document. Which is now kept in the storage space, so only I can access it.

After two weeks of harsh integration, asking stuff like who sent me or who did I work for, I let myself die. I couldn't see any other way out, and besides I had reached my limit for enduring pain.

A few days later my "brother" was found dead in the under city. We, meaning my sister's and I, cremated him. During my moment alone with him I reabsorbed him, closed the coffin lid and we started the cremation. Honestly that was the scariest part, I hope nobody saw me do that. Plus if I didn't have a chance to reabsorbed myself before I was cremated, I don't know if I could reabsorb myself.

Having two weeks flood into my mind all at once was hard to process, but I played it off as grief. It's an odd experience to, essentially, watch your own funeral. Well goodbye fake identity you will be missed. I told my sister's that I had realized what a mistake it was to create a fake identity, so I let myself die to avoid consequences. Which is half true, so they went along with the funeral even shedding tears at the imaginary loss. I need to be more careful. I've been saying that too frequently, and it needs to stop. I actually need to be careful, sure I might be hard to kill, but there are people out there who can put me down easily.

I don't like the idea of my sister's crying over me because of a dumb overconfident mistake I made.